The abundance of rich and incredibly tasty food and the truly luxurious tradition of the Russian feast have always impressed travelers to Russia. Even in middle-class Russian families, a regular dinner consists of several courses served one after another. Arranging an enormous table for holidays, parties, and welcoming the guests is a national institution in Russia. The real Russian feast includes such an incredible variety of dishes that it would be impossible to name them all: fish in aspic and grilled fish, piglet stuffed with buckwheat kasha, wildfowl, various side dishes and pokhlyobkas, soups made from three sorts of fish, as well as fowl and saffron. The table is decorated with a huge kurnik, a pancake pie stuffed with chicken, mushrooms, and rice. Russians often include exotic ingredients such as buckwheat and wild mushrooms in their diet.

It's impossible to imagine the traditional Russian table without soup: shchi (cabbage soup), borsch, or pokhlyobka. For a long time, the spoon was the only flatware in peasant homes: the master of the house used to take it at the beginning of every dinner not only to eat with, but also to discipline his fidgety children by banging on the table or even on their foreheads with it. The shchi has always been one of the basic first courses of the meal. The old traditions of rustic cuisine are reflected in the proverb: ???Schi and kasha ??” that??™s our daily bread.??? This traditional cabbage soup may be either ???hearty,??? made with beef broth with several kinds of meat and various vegetables, or ???light,??? made only with cabbage, onions and potatoes. The latter is the way shchi was eaten in poor peasant families.

Russians love fish and are experts at cooking it in a great variety of ways. Tourists must try the Russian oukha, a light broth made of fish of different kinds, including sturgeon, huso, and sterlet, that are especially flavorful. Fish can also be roasted, baked, salted, cured, or stewed in a pot with vegetables and potatoes. Generally, any meat, fish, or vegetable dish cooked in a traditional Russian clay pot will definitely impress you with its rich flavor.

You must definitely taste Siberian pelmeni (Russian ravioli), small pieces of ground meat or fish wrapped in dough and boiled. Russian appetizers are also excellent: crunchy pickles, marinated mushrooms, or sauerkraut. No one can remain indifferent to pirogi, delicious pastries that come with a variety of different stuffings (from cabbage pirogi for an appetizer to wild berries pirogi for dessert), or to honey-spice and butter cookies, as well as to kulich, a delicious coffee cake with raisins and candied orange peel baked for the Russian Orthodox Easter celebration. Among beverages, Russians have always preferred bread kvass, berry drinks (mainly from cranberries or foxberries), mead, and other mild alcoholic beverages made with honey. Then, of course, there is vodka.

The Red Square 1 restaurant, located by the walls of the Moscow Kremlin, is famed for its delicious Russian cuisineRussian traditionalists cannot fathom dieting or eating vegetarianStuffing oneself is a Russian national pastime

VODKA

The notions of vodka, Russia, and Russians seem to be inseparable. Indeed, straight vodka, cold but without ice, is the drink of choice in Russia. It warms one up well in frosty weather. The production of vodka (???bread wine???) in Russia started at the end of the 14th century. It was made of rye, wheat, or barley with different degrees of potency; however, the recipe for the beverage produced in Russia today isn??™t so old. Now, regular vodka is a 40 percent aqueous solution of distilled spirit, whose formula was worked out in the 19th century by Dmitri Mendeleyev, a famous chemist who developed the Periodic Table of chemical elements.There are several museums of vodka in Russia, one in St. Petersburg and two others in old towns of Ouglich and Myshkin on the Volga. Visitors can sample the beverage and learn about its history, as well as find out how to choose the best-quality vodka. Russian drinking is legendary.

There are numerous jokes on this topic, for example: ???If vodka interferes with work, quit working,??? or ???Drunk in the morning, free for the rest of the day??? and the like. Still, although Russians know how to party and have fun, they have another proverb that can be translated as: ???Drink, but don??™t forget about business.???

City of Uglich (Yaroslavl Region). The Russian Vodka MuseumIn large quantities vodka both harms you and helps you! Foreign tourists like to try this Russian adage out themselves

BLINY

Thin, rosy pancakes cooked from liquid dough on a hot pan are a symbol of the warm spring sun and the pagan holiday of Maslenitsa (welcoming of Spring). In Russia, bliny are made from different flours and meals, both with yeast and unleavened, with or without spices added during the cooking. They are eaten with butter, jam, honey, salmon, caviar or sour cream. During the entire Maslenitsa, people try to gorge themselves, since Lent follows right after it. By the way, stuffing oneself is another Russian national pastime, and sometimes it ends badly. Every Russian knows the true story of a famous fable writer Ivan Krylov (1769??“1844), also called ???the Russian La Fontaine,??? who died soon after eating a suicidal two-foot pile of pancakes in one sitting.

Moscow. February. Maslenitsa

CAVIAR

Famous Russian caviar is exported worldwide, and connoisseurs prize it as ???better than rubies.??? Caviar is produced in the Volga and the Caspian Sea area, where sturgeon-like fish species, such as beluga, osseters, sevryugas, and sterlets, are still abundant. The caviar of beluga, which is harvested during several weeks in spring and autumn in the Volga Delta, is one of the best in quality. Caviar is then cleaned with water, membranes and impurities are removed , and the product is salted in special metal containers. Experienced masters blend the caviar of several sturgeons, selecting them by colour, consistency, and some other qualities known only to them. The brine must not be too strong: only 45 grams of salt per litre of water.

Unfortunately, the time when Russians could eat copious amounts of caviar has long passed

BREAD

Russia is number one in the world in per capita bread consumption. Bread is always the centrepiece of any Russian table, especially in the families of simple, working-class people. A proverb says: ???Bread is at the head of everything.??? Bread and salt have always accompanied the joyous and the sad occasions in the lives of Russians. Usually, dear guests or newlyweds were welcomed with bread and salt, and bread was the first thing to pack for a long journey. Traditional Russian bread is called ???black??? because it is made of rye flour. Foreign tourists like taking it home with them as a souvenir.

Russian proverb says: ???Bread is at the head of everything.???

KVASS

Kvass is a non-alcoholic beverage that can really quench one??™s thirst; it is incredibly popular in Russia. Kvass is made by fermenting water, yeast, sugar, and rye bread. Not only is this beverage tasty, but it is also good for one??™s health: it balances one??™s metabolism and helps keep the heart in good working condition. It??™s not by accident that a proverb says: ???Russian kvass has saved many lives.??? Okroshka, a kind of cold summer soup made with kvass, is very tasty as well. Its traditional ingredients are boiled meat (more rarely, fish), eggs, and vegetables (potatoes and carrots), as well as fresh cucumbers, garden greens, and a dollop of sour cream on top.

Non-alcoholic beverage kvass is often flavoured with fruits or herbs such as strawberries or mint